[204]
“You will realize,” I said, “that your assertion is such as I have declared it to be if you will ask any intelligent men, first what they think are the best ways of life, and next how long a time has passed since the Lacedaemonians settled in the Peloponnesus. For there is no one who, among the ways of life, will not give preference to the practice of reverence in relation to the gods and of justice in relation to mankind and of wisdom in relation to all activities in general, and they will tell you that the Spartans have lived in the Peloponnesus not more than seven hundred years.